


Close the Distance

by decaf_kitty



Series: Promises [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Umino Iruka, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:44:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: Ten years into his tenure as Hokage, Kakashi Hatake unfortunately has to assign his late-night part-time assistant and close friend, Iruka Umino, a long mission far away from Konoha.





	Close the Distance

His eyes were dark and full of pain.

Iruka had gone still, his back against the wall. He could just barely sense the ANBU in the office waver and then disappear, surely having been sent away. He didn’t see the withdrawal, but the atmosphere in the dimly lit room darkened even further with the ANBU’s absence. 

It became worse.

Kakashi was frightening, he was intense. His eyes were precise; they pierced Iruka. The Hokage himself was unbearably silent, not making a single sound, even his breathing turning stagnant. 

In contrast, Iruka could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears like war drums.

His hands were flat on the office wall, and the back of his heels, too. Kakashi’s bare hands were on either side of Iruka’s shoulders, not touching him, but they were so very close, Iruka could almost spectrally feel Kakashi’s fingers holding him rough against the wall. 

He was afraid to look away.

But Iruka forced himself to speak. 

“Hokage-sama, I –”

“Don’t call me that,” Kakashi sharply cut him off. His mask was in place, so Iruka couldn’t see his lips move, but he watched the outline of the nin’s lips twist with his words.

Iruka fell into a glower, his shoulders tensing. “Kakashi-san, I don’t –”

“Don’t call me that, either.”

Even though he was definitely in the Hokage’s office, talking to the current Hokage, the man visibly attired as the leader of Konoha – Iruka’s last nerves frayed, and his anger finally boiled over.

“Fine,” he snapped, his own eyes narrowing. “Kakashi - I don’t control missions, you do. You can’t get angry at me for accepting the mission that you just told me to take.”

Unmoving, his livid expression unchanged, Kakashi declared in a low, dark voice, “You were going to walk out of here without saying anything.”

Iruka found it impossible not to shake physically in the throes of rage and irritation. He knew his countenance would be terrible and wrong to show the Hokage, but he couldn’t hold himself back from being obviously aggravated with the other man. 

“You said, ‘Iruka-sensei, you’ll be gone for six months. Work hard. Take care of yourself,’ and then you looked down at your paperwork and started to write something!” Iruka hissed, curling his fingers along the wood wall. “Was that _not_ a signal to leave, Hokage-sama?”

“Do _not_ call me that!” 

The words were spoken far too hard, far too loud; they made Iruka jump in place and push himself further away from Kakashi. His anger faded away in his surprise, and he stared at Kakashi with a new dawning understanding of the situation. His gaze dropped down to the man’s own shoulders, held fearfully immobile; it almost seemed as if Kakashi was in the midst of battle, working through strategies in concealed panic, contemplating future countermoves.

“… Kakashi?”

Iruka followed the slight movement of Kakashi’s throat, watching him swallow in discomfort. Seeing his friend so distressed, he lifted his hand slowly off the wall and brushed against the other man’s leg, deliberately light. With such a small distance between them, there was no doubt that Kakashi stiffened in reaction to the touch, although he noticeably didn’t move away.

Instead, Kakashi’s dark eyes – open but half-lidded – sought out Iruka’s. 

“Iruka,” he breathed, sounding truly strained.

“What did you want me to say?” Iruka asked quietly, spreading his hand across Kakashi’s clothed hipbone and letting it rest there with gentle resolve. “… what do you want me to say?”

There was no sound coming from the other man. It was unnerving, but Iruka reminded himself that this was the Hokage of his village, an elite jounin, an ex-ANBU, a war general. Kakashi had killed hundreds of men and women, perhaps children too. He could move silently in the shadows; he could vanish without leaving a trace. He could have substituted himself ten years ago with a clone when first taking the position of Hokage and been lounging in a tree at the edge of town this whole time. 

He had skill, immeasurable and unbelievable skill. 

But Kakashi presently seemed to be forcing himself to stay still. He looked restrained - not in the loose lazy way that he had when he was a jounin-sensei, nor how he had seemed on the battlefield, casually standing between Iruka and enemy nin seeking his death. 

No, Kakashi looked like he was holding himself back from speaking, acting, being true.

Iruka knew he was just a chuunin, a humble teacher at the Academy, the Hokage’s part-time late-night bureaucrat. His hair still reeked of smoke from a pre-genin’s prank that went off hours ago; his stomach wanted desperately to know when he would go get their usual ramen takeout. 

But tonight Kakashi had pushed a mission scroll at him, one that requested Iruka’s long-term presence in a distant village to assess the unusual growth of a child’s chakra levels – well before Iruka had a chance to ask him what the dear Hokage would like for dinner.

Iruka’s eyes drifted down to where he was holding onto Kakashi’s hip. 

They had touched plenty of times over the course of their friendship, more since Kakashi had become Hokage, but the contact tended to be amiable in nature, although often a bit too intense. There were the innumerable moments where Kakashi slapped him on the back in delight – or grabbed Iruka’s hands in excitement – or bumped into his shoulder while they did paperwork together. Most of the time, Kakashi initiated contact, but Iruka could admit to himself that he had occasionally gone out of his way to slide his hand against Kakashi’s, press his sandaled foot against Kakashi’s, and –

And then there was the one exceptional moment three months ago, when Iruka had poured Kakashi celebratory sake, declaring that they’d never gotten a chance to toast his inauguration a decade earlier, and they had gotten so totally intoxicated that Iruka had become unstable when he leaned over to refill Kakashi’s cup for the sixth time.

Somehow, just somehow, Iruka had found himself sprawled atop Kakashi, who he honestly thought would have been able to dodge such a foolish misstep, but instead Iruka had stared down at his Hokage, and –

“Did you want me to say I’ll miss you, Kakashi?”

Kakashi’s dark eyes tore through Iruka like dangerous jutsu. His jaw moved just slightly, as if he was considering opening his mouth to speak, but, a second later, he flexed it shut again. 

There was a veiled heat struggling to the surface of Kakashi’s face. It was becoming rather visible being so close to him: the blush was fighting to overwrite the line of his black cloth mask. Against his white cowl, silver-grey hair, and the red-and-white hat, the faint pink was far more prominent than it should have been. 

Iruka found it fascinating. 

With Kakashi’s Sharingan gone and his hitai-ate no longer flung across the scarred half of his face, Iruka took endless pleasure in witnessing the man’s increasingly revealed expression.

In this instance, late in the night, alone with Kakashi for once, Iruka watched his friend’s rising embarrassment, and he smiled, soft and amused by the sight and what it meant.

“I’ll miss you,” Iruka confessed as he drew his hand from Kakashi’s hip further up his side then finally to his clothed cheek, the one with the long old scar.

“Can…” Kakashi tried to say, but his voice failed him spectacularly, like he’d lost the ability to speak in some cruel genjutsu striking him violently. His black eyes were still stuck on Iruka’s face, but he also chose to shift slightly, leaning his head into Iruka’s open palm.

“Can…?” Iruka echoed him, almost inaudible. He could feel his muscles twitching under his shinobi blues and tight bandages; his instincts were torn between defensive taijutsu and surrender to his superior.

Kakashi blinked, apparently unable to regain his words. He looked conflicted, a once-invisible war spilling out across his features. 

All of a sudden, he took in a deep breath, the sound surprising Iruka beyond belief, having grown accustomed to the dead silence of the Hokage’s office.

He registered the other man moving forward, his own arm adjusting to stay on Kakashi’s cheek, as the other man closed the distance between them and asked in a swift whisper: 

“Can I kiss you?” 

Iruka could only nod in response. He felt Kakashi’s lips under his mask move, part, and push against his own. He tilted his head on instinct, wanting deeper and longer contact between the two of them. His own hand glided under Kakashi’s broad hat and under his white cowl, his fingers catching that long-familiar grey-silver hair. 

He felt Kakashi’s own strong nimble fingers close around his shoulders, before they dropped swiftly to his waist, then his hips – and then Kakashi pulled him forward, pressing them against each other with instant unimaginable intimacy.

He realized he’d knocked off Kakashi’s hat only when it struck the ground, but Iruka was too distracted to care: he took advantage of its absence, grabbing more of Kakashi’s hair, enjoying the feel of the same silky strands he’d stared at for years.

Although Iruka found strangely satisfied with kissing Kakashi through his mask, apparently that wasn’t enough for the other man, because he jerked the fabric down to his throat like one might rip through bandages with a kunai. 

Without looking up at Iruka, Kakashi’s bare mouth – truly beautiful lips, with a dark beauty mark to match – went after the high exposed part of Iruka’s throat, kissing there with rushed enthusiasm and obvious devotion.

Iruka’s hands clenched down on Kakashi’s shoulders as his eyes fluttered shut at the delicious sensation of the man kissing his neck. 

He tenderly kissed the side of Kakashi’s head, near his temple, all while breathing in his sweet-smelling hair. 

Then Kakashi bit down on Iruka’s sensitive skin, sucking it into his mouth, and Iruka gasped – then groaned – then pulled him harder and closer, wanting and demanding more, more of that.

Kakashi responded with perfect delirious kindness: he wrenched down Iruka’s high collar and did the same thing again, marking him seriously and without the least bit of restraint.

Iruka could _feel_ Kakashi’s arousal against his own, thick, heavy, and hot against his own muscular thigh. He pushed against the other man while dragging him forward, making their bodies intertwine and entangle with wild heat. He could just hear himself panting into Kakashi’s grey-silver hair, but he better heard the nearly soundless murmur near his throat:

“I’m going to miss you - I don’t want you to go.”

Before Iruka could reply, though, Kakashi was on his knees, and he’d pulled up Iruka’s blue shinobi shirt, hoisted aside his flak jacket, and he was leaving dark bruises with bites and kisses and sucking skin all across Iruka’s abdomen barely above his belt-line. 

It was very hard not to thrust his hips in his friend’s face – but Kakashi was in full Hokage attire, and that certainly made Iruka give his impulsive actions a second thought – and yet –

Three months ago, Kakashi had been dressed much the same as he sprawled across the floor, smelling of fine sake and staring up at Iruka with wide surprised eyes. 

Iruka had done the only thing that his drunk, damnable brain could think of:

He kissed Kakashi’s mouth through his mask. 

Iruka wasn’t the least bit gentle: he bit Kakashi’s bottom lip and gripped the sides of Kakashi’s face while he poured down years of frustration and feeling into the other man.

Stunned and totally still, Kakashi had just taken it - he had taken all of it, even when Iruka – even when Iruka –

Even when Iruka nosed down past the white cowl of the Hokage and gave him a ferocious mark on his neck through the cloth of his dark mask.

The Hokage’s ANBU bodyguard had not appreciated that particular action, drawing Iruka off like he was a rebellious puppy caught running away from home, having thrown off his leash. After looking owlishly at the elite porcelain-masked man, Iruka had slowly turned to see Kakashi prop himself up on his elbows, intent and intense in his attention directed solely at Iruka. He’d waved off the ANBU, suggested in short sentences that they ought to call it a night, and then wrapped things up with a few notes for the morning, causing Iruka to walk out into the night alone, so very obviously and painfully alone.

They were together now, though.

Kakashi’s hands were too talented, one holding up Iruka’s shirt and the other tracing over the new bruises he’d left only seconds ago. His mouth was equally skilled, soft but insistent, and his teeth were glorious and giving Iruka sweet pain. Kakashi was breathing harder now, puffs of hot air tickling Iruka’s exposed skin.

He changed tactics suddenly: Iruka’s belt was undone, his pants pushed down to his knees, and Kakashi was abruptly using his tongue, memorizing the length, heat, hardness of Iruka’s arousal. 

It was impossible not to stare. 

A deep blush had absolutely overwhelmed Kakashi’s bare face. He looked feverish, thrown by battle exertion and poison, but he also looked electrified, on edge and enjoying it. He spread his tongue along the underside of Iruka’s cock at the very same moment that he finally glanced back up, as if he wanted to see Iruka’s reaction after all his rapid-paced worship.

Suddenly, Iruka was on his knees, too, surprising them both.

He pulled Kakashi forward by grabbing his face much more impolitely than he intended. But Iruka was soon desperately giving the other man kisses – deep hard kisses – kisses that spoke for themselves.

Iruka trembled all over when Kakashi moaned huskily against his mouth.

“Kakashi,” he found himself muttering, feeling delirious, overstimulated, filthy, foul. He was pushing down, pulling down, on the white Hokage cowl, and he shoved aside the rest of Kakashi’s dark mask, and then he was biting the soft juncture of Kakashi’s shoulder and neck.

He treasured how Kakashi abruptly clung to him, how his moan got louder and unrestrained, how Kakashi’s hand dangerously and accurately rediscovered Iruka’s arousal.

In between making marks on the man’s pale skin, Iruka tried to control his voice, shaking with the uncontrolled efforts of his friend between his thighs. “Kakashi, I – I –” 

But Kakashi cut him off again, this time sounding like he’d swallowed down darkness, his words emphasized with hard-spoken heat. 

“Come back to me, Iruka,” he said, his hot breath fluttering the stray hairs at Iruka’s newly bruised neck. 

A second later, Kakashi added evenly, “Don’t die.” 

It was almost an order, seeming oddly like something the Hokage would teasingly suggest to a favored shinobi while knowing the mission might entail maiming and murder. 

Yet Kakashi’s intention was fine and delicate like white lace, like fragile butterfly wings, as he murmured into Iruka’s dark hair, still tied up tight. “I want to see you again.”

Kakashi was utterly skilled, impossibly skilled. He somehow made his confession, his command, his plea all at the same time that he stroked Iruka closer and closer to the pinnacle of pleasure. 

Iruka was gripping the other man’s shoulders too roughly, and he sunk his teeth in hard, deep, as so very thrillingly, agonizingly, finally Kakashi brought him to his needy peak. 

As he came, he almost didn’t hear himself say, strangled and desperate, “Kakashi, I love you” –

\- but he realized that he said it because Kakashi went still all over – 

\- and then kissed him with outrageous strength, shoving him flat against the wall, sending him crashing down on his ass, his legs spreading open to stabilize himself.

“Then come back to me,” Kakashi ground out, his fingers dipping through Iruka’s cum, drawing obscene patterns over the dark bruises on Iruka’s bare abdomen, perfectly situated between Iruka’s open thighs. 

When Iruka instinctively reached for Kakashi, wanting to do something for him, he had the unsettling experience of witnessing the man’s speed next, as Kakashi’s other hand snatched his wrist mid-air and held him entirely still.

“No,” he murmured, insistent and serious. “I don’t need that from you, not today.”

Kakashi pulled back from him, purposefully meeting Iruka’s hurt, confused gaze.

“Just promise to come back to me.”

There was no refusing Kakashi Hatake, his Hokage, his friend, his life-long love, now or ever.

“Of course…” Observing the way that Kakashi watched his expression so intensely, Iruka’s eyes softened, and he used his free hand to caress the side of the other man’s face, still blush-heavy, now slightly pained, more visibly wrought with anxiety. “… Kakashi, I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

“You promise. Remember that, you promised me.”

It sounded less like a leader giving war commands - and more like a young man insisting his new lover not forget him in the wild chaotic whirlwind of life. 

But they were older now, perhaps even old by shinobi standards. The desperation of the last few minutes, with their secrets now blooming out in bright bruises, exposed the truth so horribly to both of them. There was no guarantee in spoken promises, there was no certainty of safety in even the easiest of missions, there was no tranquil calm in Konoha even in peacetime.

And yet – Iruka promised again, leaning forward and kissing Kakashi gently:

“I want to see you again, too. Wait for me.”

He could only hope he wouldn’t make Kakashi wait forever: he couldn’t, wouldn’t make Kakashi into an adoring dog anticipating its owner’s return for a sweet reunion which would never happen, but, unable to imagine that awful truth, unable to accept it, he would wait by the door, by the window, by the front gate, waiting, waiting, waiting, sad sighs while curling up in bed, weak eyes wanting the sight of a loved one, heart breaking every day, heart hoping every day.

Or was that what Iruka feared? That he would come home to Konoha and find Kakashi dead or missing or gone to war? And then he would be the little dog, hopeful and heart-broken, with unbruised skin and unmarked throat, holding onto the fading memory of hungry kisses?

It was impossible to tell what happened next, night-time existence being so dreamy and distracting, but so soon it was morning, and Iruka looked back at Konoha, walking alone away from its high walls, wondering if somewhere its Hokage was watching him depart.

He had new marks to remember Kakashi all across his throat, his skin, his heart.

He would come back, he would, he promised.

**Author's Note:**

> ... serious question: should there be a sequel?


End file.
